Samford in the News – Week of Feb. 11

A round-up of selected Samford University references in news outlets around the nation. It is compiled by the Office of Marketing and Communication from the university's media tracking service and may not be a comprehensive list.

Hartzog Authors Atlantic Article on Social Media

Woodrow Hartzog, Cumberland School of Law professor, is co-author of a Feb. 15 article in The Atlantic on "The Costs of Leaving Social Media." "Simple solutions have been proposed to help users cope with the vulnerability of disclosing information on the social web. These remedies are clear and decisive, but they demand significant trade-offs -- perhaps greater sacrifice than typically is acknowledged," Hartzog writes.

The Samford men's basketball team was referenced in a Feb. 17 story published on al.com about a special convict rehabilitation program coordinated by U.S. District Judge Karon Bowdre of Birmingham. Bowdre has both undergraduate and law degrees from Samford. "The CARE team -- prosecutors, defense attorneys, probation officers and me -- have taken the men and their families fishing, hosted a picnic, gone bowling, and played basketball with them (and the Samford University men's basketball team), all the while modeling how to interact with their children and have fun in positive ways," Bowdre said.

Jill Evans, Cumberland School of Law faculty, was quoted in a Feb. 16 al.com story about the first lawsuit resulting from the Carnival cruise accident. Evans said she expects some people to sue. "I'm sure that they're going to try," she said. "It depends on what the contract says about what types of exposure that they have."

Jeremy Thornton, Brock School of Business economics faculty, was featured in a Feb. 15 report on Birmingham's CBS affiliate. "Something is going to force Congress's hand; we can't continue on this current trajectory," said Thornton. "Nothing is more destructive to an economy than people sitting at home. That's what needs to be setting politicians hair on fire, how to get people back into the workforce."

The Feb. 13 dedication of Samford's new Barbara Drummond Thorne Hall was featured on the front page of the Jasper, Ala., Daily Mountain Eagle. Samford President Andrew Westmoreland and others were quoted in the story. "We are grateful for the many relationships she had at Samford," said Beth Thorne Stukes said of her mother, whose life, she said, "exemplified the core values of Samford. This is a fitting tribute." Stukes is a member of Samford's board of trustees.

Two Samford University alumni who first met through Samford's pharmacy department were featured in a Jackson, Miss., Clarion-Ledger story following their Valentine's Day wedding in a Kroger Pharmacy. Sixty years after they met, 87-year-old Osler Moore of Madison and his intended, Billie Small, 79, of Heflin, Ala., had a spur-of-the-moment wedding Feb. 14. Moore and Small first met as students on the campus of Howard College, now Samford University, in Birmingham. Small said she had a job in the pharmacy school under a work-study program when she met Moore.

New Samford history department faculty member Paul Cha was featured on a Feb. 14 segment on Birmingham's Fox affiliate about North Korea's plans for nuclear weapons testing. "There are two ways to view this," Cha said. "One is rhetoric aimed at the domestic population to legitimize the national rulers. On the other hand is the historical context."

Beeson Divinity School faculty member Lyle Dorsett was quoted in a Feb. 13 segment on Birmingham's ABC affiliate about the dangers of spending too much time with Facebook and other social media outlets. The segment was in the context of the 40 days of the Christian Lenten season. "I would suspect that for someone to give up Facebook for 40 days is a pretty big thing to give up," Dorsett says in the interview.